I Know You
by Crocodilian
Summary: John Marston meets the strange man one last time. One-Shot


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Red Dead Redemption.

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><p><strong>I Know You<strong>

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><p>I watched the horse run away from Beecher's Hope, and I knew there was no way out of this. There was no way to escape the men that I knew were standing outside of my barn, waiting for me to come out so they could kill me. I was angry, sure, but more than that I was sad. Not for myself, for my sweet Abigail, and for Jack. But I had to be brave for them, I had to die fighting. I would take as many of those men with me as I could. Beecher's Hope was already littered with dead bodies, and I had hoped to increase that in my dying moments.<p>

I opened up the barn doors, drew my trusty Cattleman Revolver, and fired. I was panicked, and in that state I was only able to take down a few. My gun was aimed at Edgar Ross when I heard the shots like a thousand explosions. I hadn't noticed that my eyes had closed, but when I opened them, my gun was gone, and I was watching them walk away. I looked around, and all I saw were the dead bodies of others. Had they decided to leave me alone? I didn't understand, but I didn't question it. My mind immediately went to Jack and Abigail, and I sprinted up to the hill behind the corral to see if they were far enough away.

The man with the top hat was there, standing where he was the last time I had seen him. This time, he was looking at me as I walked up. Like all of the other times, he acted like he expected to see me there, but this time was different. I looked away from him, to the road below, to see Jack and Abigail riding back to the ranch. I panicked again, calling out to them to turn back. The agents from Blackwater and the US Army were still on the ranch, although they were leaving. I didn't want them to risk anything.

"They can't hear you, John." The strange man said to me. "But you can hear them if you'd like. Take a quick walk with me." I didn't say anything. I didn't have a sarcastic or bitter remark for him this time; I simply followed him down the hill. What I saw shocked me. I saw myself. I saw my own bloody corpse laying on the ground in front of the barn, riddled with bullet holes and surrounded by the most blood I had ever seen.

"I don't understand." I started to say, but then Jack and Abigail arrived. Abigail nearly threw herself off of the horse and ran over to the corpse. She leaned down over him, or me, and sobbed. She said some things I couldn't quite make out, the only thing I could understand was the word no. Finally Jack came over and pulled her off of me, or the corpse, and held her while she cried. Then Jack took hold of my arms, and Abigail took hold of my legs, and they carried me up the hill. Jack then ran back to the barn and got a shovel, and dug a nice deep hole in which they buried the body.

They decorated it nicely, in a way that I was happy with. They put rocks over the grave so animals wouldn't dig me up and Jack made a nice cross. The strange man and I stood by the grave alongside the both of them for a while, and finally Jack and Abigail went back to the house. I stepped closer to the cross and read what it said at the bottom.

"Blessed are the peacemakers." I read aloud. "Blessed indeed."

"Most people at this point ask me how they are seeing all of this, but you aren't like most people, are you, John?" The strange man said. "You know how you're seeing all of this."

"Yeah, I'm dead." I told him. "I'm some kind of ghost now, or just a soul, I guess."

"You're worried about your family." He stated, and it was true, I was. "You have every right to be worried. In a few years, Abigail will die from tuberculosis. I'm sure you've noticed her coughing a lot lately? Well, that's just the beginning."

"Oh, Abigail…" I watched from a distance as all the lights in the house went off, and noticed that it was dark. "And Jack? Will he become a writer like he's always wanted?"

"When Jack is nineteen years old, he will murder Edgar Ross in memory of his family." The man stated. "He will be angry, and sad, and alone." I stared around at Beecher's Hope, and watched it change in a matter of seconds. The grass became overgrown, the cattle and horses disappeared, and it looked abandoned. I glanced back down to see Abigail's grave next to mine, and when I looked next to me I saw a man. I knew immediately that this was Jack. He looked like me, and he looked like Abigail. He wore my hat and an angry expression. He turned away, mounted a black horse, and rode off, disappearing into the horizon.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked the strange man, turning back to him. "Why are you showing me this?"

"You deserve to know, John." He replied. "All those things I made you do, they were tests. Most people would ask if they passed those tests, but you know whether you did or not, don't you?" He was right, I did. "Most people would ask who I am, but you know that too." Right again, I knew exactly who he was.

"Everybody meets me at some point in their lives." He continued. "But you were special, John. I wasn't so sure about you. That's why I gave you those tests, and you proved your worth to me." He held out his hand. "It's time to go, John Marston." I turned around, glancing one last time at my own grave, and read it aloud one last time.

"Blessed are the peacemakers." I hesitantly reached out my hand.

"Blessed indeed." He took my hand, and all I saw was white.

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><p><strong>AN<strong>: You can take this any way you like. This is a one-shot, there will be no chapters following it.


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